


James learns two things the day he meets Madam Graire.

by Cockbite (personalized_radio)



Series: The Cockbite Syndicate [9]
Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Fake James, M/M, Rated For Violence, Russian Gangster Aleksandr, Secret love, Why yes i did try to fit a 100k fic into 2k :), aaf au, lmao yep AAF IS BACK except as an au whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 15:36:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17583602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/personalized_radio/pseuds/Cockbite
Summary: One, that she is his enemy, is dangerous, isn’t to be trusted or allowed anywhere near anything he holds dear.Two, that her main muscle’s name is Aleksandr and Jameswantshim.





	James learns two things the day he meets Madam Graire.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elbo2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elbo2/gifts).



> AYYYY this is for my lovely friend @cementcornfield, who is honestly the KINDEST and im so glad they liked this bc it really got away from me there
> 
>  
> 
> can u tell that i tried to fit a giant fic into 2k bc im a monster???? im so sorry

James learns two things the day he meets Madam Graire.

One, that she is his enemy, is dangerous, isn’t to be trusted or allowed anywhere near anything he holds dear.

Two, that her main muscle’s name is Aleksandr and James _wants_ him.

-

“I am sorry,” he says, though he isn’t, “That we couldn’t work things out, Madam.”

“Ah, _Nova_ , it is no fault of yours,” Madam Graire smiles, and he can feel the darkness behind it. He doesn’t shiver, because no Russian mobster is going to make Nova shiver, but he feels Brett tense ever so subtly at his back.

“We will simply...co-exist.”

“Sure.” Brett smiles back and James hopes he shows his fangs but he doesn’t look behind him to check.

Madam Graire is a squat woman, to say the least. She barely comes up to James’ chest. Dark hair and lines that show her age and experience, olive skin, sharp eyes that betray the intelligence and malice behind her facade. She’s killed more people in the years James has been alive than most people in this business will _fight_ with in a lifetime, and she’s been in the game longer than the Kingpin and the Vagabond combined. She’s a legend, even in the States.

But, then again, he’s been told he’s a few people’s boogeyman, too. She ain’t so great.

She wants to run through these streets without paying the toll, then she’ll be met like every other asshole who’s tried. This city belongs to Kingpin, and that means it belongs to James.

It belongs to Nova.

Graire turns to leave.

“Come, _my volk_ ,” she snaps her fingers as she begins to walk away and the man that has been standing behind her during the whole meeting takes a step back, like he’s following her but isn’t sure if he wants to turn around.

James has been trying to keep his eyes to himself the whole meeting, but he lets himself look now and finds that there are dark brown irises staring right back.

He’s tall, dark hair and dark eyes and dark, patchy stubble on pale skin.

James, for the first time in a while, since he’s started taking this whole Fake thing seriously, _wants_ , and knows that means this man is fucking dangerous.

“ _Aleksandr_ ,” Graire snaps, loud, and the man whips around without a word, strides to her side.

He glances over his shoulder just before the gets into the driver’s side of their car - a sleek lambo - and James mouths his name, just to taste it.

Aleksandr.

-

James learns a third thing the first time he catches _Aleksandr_ running, though it is not the first time he’s chased him, the first time they’ve played cat and mouse and dog and man.

He learns how Aleksandr tastes.

-

There are hands on his hips, under his shirt, and he wants to shove them away as badly as he wants the burn of skin on skin to be _everywhere_.

“You aren’t getting away with that load,” he manages to say between _Aleksandr_ kissing his lips and dragging his tongue down to his throat. He manages to hold back a groan, but he can’t help tilting his head to the side for the biting sting of teeth to get closer.

“Fine,” Aleksandr says, voice thick, and those hands drag his shirt up more, sharp nails trailing along the sensitive skin of his scarred up belly. He arches away instinctively, hands clutching at Aleksandr’s hair and shoulders and the touch moves away from his scars without hesitation, back to safe skin that doesn’t make him squirm in all the wrong ways.

“Seriously,” He chokes out, legs Aleksandr fuck with the buckle of his belt even as he drags his face back up for another intense, rough kiss between words, “Fucking me isn’t paying the toll, you can’t - _fuck_ , ah, okay, okay, no, fucking me isn’t the paying up, you can’t _run_ without following the fucking rules, motherfucker -”

“I said,” Aleksandr bites at his lip, nearly draws blood and sucks it between his own in apology, kisses him so deeply he can’t remember how to breathe anymore, until he’s dizzy from it, until his hands are weak and pawing at Aleksandr’s sweats. “Fine. Fuck the load, take it to Ramsey.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he pushes, insistent, against Aleksandr’s chest and Aleksandr audiably groans but he does let himself be pushed, steps back so he isn’t pinning James against the alley wall anymore.

“ _What_ , _vzryv zvezdy_?” Aleksandr demands, and James has to take a second to just. Look at him, try to figure out what’s happened to get him from pulling Aleksandr over to raid his trunk to being ready to fuck against a wall.

“You’re - this is fucking suspicious, you get that, right? You can’t just speed around my fuckin’ hoods with a hot car and then - then just, fucking, fucking fuck me against a wall and tell me to take the drugs, what game are you _playing_ here, fucker -”

“Fun game,” Aleksandr smirks, looking him up and down.

James flushes. He can’t tell if it’s lust or rage.

“Not a fun game.” He growls back, “A dangerous game.”

“The most dangerous?” Aleksandr challenges and James finds himself grinding his teeth in a sneering sort of smile.

“Yeah. I’ll count, you hide.”

“I’ve already caught you, I think, _vzryv zvezdy_ ,” Aleksandr points out and takes that step back into his space. James lets him, lets him cage him against the wall because he wants to be closer, wants to touch. He’s been chasing this fucking guy for weeks, but now he feels like the one that’s been run down.

“Only because I let you.” James says sweetly and wedges his knee lightly against Aleksandr’s crotch, a reminder that he can easily escape whatever this is. He’s no fucking captive.

“See?” Aleksandr tilts his head, noses along James’ jaw, stubble scraping against stubble, “Fun game.”

“Dangerous.” James repeats and yanks their hips together, ducks down to kiss him again.

-

James learns a fourth thing at his apartment now, and a fifth thing.

He learns Graire’s plan, and he learns that he’s so weak to a Russian accent and dangerous eyes.

Maybe he only learns one thing and just remembers the other.

-

“She wants me to seduce you,” Aleks says between kisses trailing down James’ chest. James has his shirt rucked up to his pits, exposing his chest and stomach and sides. He feels exposed, overly so, and tense against the head of Aleks’ touch. His scars are exposed, the ones on his front at least, but Aleks is avoiding them as best he can and that is the only thing that stops James from pushing him off as he speaks.

“Why?” He asks, but he’s barely paying any attention. He lets himself relax, arms above his head, crossed on the pillows at the wrists because he wants to let Aleks do what he may, wants to _feel_ it. Aleks knows how to touch him after all these weeks, and it isn’t like they haven’t danced around this, around the knowledge that Aleks has a job to do and James has a job to do and they’re opposing jobs. In some ways, at least.

“No toll if we’re fucking the toll master,” Aleks scoffs, nuzzles the pudge of his belly and James squirms, has to stop himself from giggling at the touch. He’s not ticklish, not usually, but Aleks is smooth-cheeked now and it feels _weird_ against the hair on his belly.

“No running,” James spreads his legs, lets Aleks inch his shorts down until the tops of his thighs, the curls of his pubic hair are revealed. Aleks scatters kisses along the new skin, noses at the swell of his hips, bites marks into the soft skin until he makes James moan and arch against the bed. “No running,” James repeats, breathless, “Without paying up. Fucking me isn’t the toll.”

“Yeah,” Aleks agrees, nuzzling into his belly. He’s obsessed with James’ heft, likes the give of his belly and hips, the thickness of his thighs and waist, and James likes that Aleks likes when he’s on top, be it sitting in Aleks’ lap or between his legs. “I’m in trouble, _vzryv zvezdy_. Mama G is not happy. Your people keep crashing our parties.”

“I’m not gonna stop,” James warns, and means it. He wants to stop, he does. He doesn’t want Aleks to be in trouble.

But he has people he’s responsible for. A-team and Brett and the rest of his crew. They’re Faked, and that takes priority.

“I know,” Aleks pulls his shorts down a little more, exposes his thighs, the thick burn scars and the thin lines left behind by blades, healed over but fucking _sensitive_ like they’re still brand new. He lets Aleks do away with his shorts, leaves him naked. Aleks took his shirt off an hour ago, but hasn’t undressed more than that. James wishes he were naked, too.

Aleks has scars, too. Not like James, nothing like the full-body travesty that is James’ body under his clothes, but he does have scars. A bullet wound through his shoulder, front and back, and a knife wound across his belly where he’d been disemboweled once upon a time, lines on his back that are neat enough to have been on purpose, some older than others.

“Keeping track,” He’d explained once, when James had traced the line across the first of four columns, “Of my kills.”

“Oh.” James choked, and then Aleks kissed him and moved his hands away from the fucking tally marks on his back. James wishes that he’d been allowed to count them all up.

To be fair, he doesn’t let Aleks count his scars, either.

“If you know, then why are you still seducing me?” James resists the urge to grab at Aleks’ hair as he drags his smooth cheeks down his thigh, as he kisses the insides of James’ knees. Instead, he clutches his pillow, closes his eyes and turns his face into his arm. Aleks kisses up his thigh, blows soft, warm breath against the sensitive skin and James digs his heels into the mattress in response.

“I don’t mind being in trouble for you,” Aleks says between his legs and when James snaps his eyes open to look down, Aleks is looking back at him with a dark, serious gaze.

“Oh.” he says again and reaches down for him. Aleks lets himself be dragged back up, kissed within an inch of his life, lets James roll them over and strip him naked so they can press their bodies together properly for the first time.

Fucking James isn’t paying the toll, it can’t be, and Aleks is in trouble, but James wishes fucking him did pay the toll and that Aleks didn’t have to worry about anything but staying right here.

-

James learns a sixth thing the first time Aleks shows up bloody and beaten and smiling.

He learns that Aleks falls as easily as he does, likes dangerous, is weak.

He learns what Aleks will give up for a man he’s only known for less than a year.

-

James doesn’t shake as he wraps Aleks’ hand. Aleks is shaking, from shock, most likely. Anna is on her way, is speeding to James’ apartment from where she and Asher have been holed up for the last couple weeks. It’s been a mess, the war between Graire and the Fakes making the streets a dangerous place.

James hasn’t seen Aleks in at least two weeks, but he still remembers that last kiss, that promise that Aleks would be back, that this wouldn’t be the end. That he’d never fucked James to pay any toll. That he wouldn’t let James or any of his people be a tally mark.

“Why,” he manages to say, “Why the fuck would you -”

“I’m out,” Aleks says, laying his other hand over James’. James lied. He’s shaking, harder than Aleks. His wrapping is a mess. Anna will have to re-do it.

“You’re _missing a finger_ , Aleksandr!!”

“The cost, _vzryv zvezdy_ ,” Aleks shrugs, like he isn’t missing his left pinky. Like he hadn’t cut it off himself to leave Madam Graire’s side.

“It wasn’t worth it,” James snaps, and his voice is shaking, too. No one - no one would - no one _should_ \- he’s not - no one had come for him, not then, and he hates that - he _hates_ that he feels like Aleks would have. That Aleks would have saved him. It’s a fucking lie, it should be a lie, but Aleks had -

He’s missing a finger.

James kisses him. Kisses him and tastes that sixth thing so fully that it overwhelms him.

He curls his hands over Aleks’, so fucking careful of the painful, bleeding _stump_ on his left hand. He’ll never fucking - there’s so much he’ll never - he _cut his own_ -

James kisses him and kisses him and kisses him.

He holds Aleks’ hands, and Aleks holds his back so tight it hurts, but not as much as it must have hurt to do what he did, to leave Madam Graire for _James_ -

He holds Aleks’ hands and Aleks holds his back.

-

James learns a seventh thing.

He learns that he’s in love.

James learns an eighth thing.

He learns that he’s loved back.

-

James learns a ninth thing.

He learns his name.

-

“What does that mean?” he asks quietly that night, head on Aleks’ shoulder to hear his heart beating. His hand his wrapped, compressed. Anna says he’ll need therapy, that he’ll never fully recover, that the cut was awful and James hates. He hates Graire, and he hates Aleks a little bit, and himself, and he’s back in that _room_ except it’s Aleks and not him, Aleks with this scar, this trauma, these memories, and James wasn’t there to save him -

“What does what mean?” Aleks asks, rubbing his good hand over his back. His voice is tired, husky, but content. His accent is thick with sleepiness.

“That thing. That thing you call me.” James closes his eyes, remembers the first time Aleks had called him _vzryv zvezdy_. A drag race James had won, though he’d lost Aleks’ car in the streets either way. Aleks had blown a kiss and a “Good race, _vzryv zvezdy,_ ” his way and used the bright lights and James’ confusion to disappear.

Now, he has it whispered into his scars, his skin, his lips, his hair, his fingertips. He hears it in Aleks’ chest, his heartbeat.

“ _Zvezda vzorvalas_?” Aleks asks, faded, and James nods against his chest.

“It means,” Aleks noses his hair, clutches him close with his hand. James is lying just under his other arm but Aleks curls his elbow so he is holding him, even as loose as it has to be with his fucked up hand, “It means _starburst_ ,”

“Fuck you,” James says automatically, a laugh forced out of his mouth, and he feels Aleks shake with his own laughter under him.

“It fits,” Aleks insists, “My star burst. _Moya zvezda vzorvalas_.”

James shivers. Aleks holds him closer.


End file.
